Nintendo Isn’t The Problem, You Are

Doubtless you’ve read a bunch of opinion pieces about what Nintendo’s problems are and how they should fix them all lately. It’s lead to a bunch of ingrates talking about going third party, developing for iOS or making a console to compete with the Xbox One and PS4.

And they’re all rubbish, rubbish suggestions and the people saying this stuff are idiots.

Sure, Nintendo doesn’t help itself with its seeming inability to market a game or console, and it might be a bit out of touch as it showed with the whole Cranky Kong reveal at the Spike awards, but here’s the thing… on the whole it’s not Nintendo’s fault.

It’s your fault.

You see, you’re the reason bloody Knack outsold Super Mario 3D World. You’re the reason there’s Angry Birds merchandise in a bunch of stores. You’re the reason people like PewDiePie make god knows how much money on YouTube by dribbling and squawking over a bunch of Amnesia rip offs.

You’ve changed. You people can’t deal with happiness or fun anymore. It’s been this way for a while now.

Remember how the utterly joyful Beyond Good and Evil flopped? Remember how Turok changed from a Native Indian fighting cyborgs, dinosaurs and Lovecraftian horrors in happy mystical land to a bullnecked military shooter? That’s you that is.

You’re the people that denigrate Nintendo and its products by saying stuff like ‘it’s too cartoony’ or ‘it’s for kids.’

You say you only like playing ‘mature’ games, but then you go off to play warboner shooters against a bunch of 10 year olds who learned all their vocabulary from Harold and Kumar films and Let’s Play videos.

You’re the people that moan about every Mario or Zelda game being the same, before buying Assassin’s Creed and Call of Duty every year, because the main character can do an extra flip or something.

There’s the odd exception, but on the whole, you like adolescent one man power fantasy killfests. And that’s fine! There’s nothing wrong with that, and there’s nothing better after a shitty day at work than letting off some steam with a shamelessly violent and stupid computer game, but God, don’t pretend that what you like is worthwhile or ‘mature.’

Just because you’re too insecure doesn’t mean you should take out all your frustrations on Nintendo. You’ve all missed out on some of the greatest, most inclusive games of the year because they didn’t appeal to your ultra-exclusive, ‘mature’ boys club mentality.

Here’s the truth. You’d all miss Nintendo if it vanished, whether you know it or not. It won’t vanish, obviously, as to bet against it is stupidity, but if the unthinkable were to happen then this industry just wouldn’t be worth trying to salvage anymore.

You’d all have won.

You’ll all have doomed yourselves to a free-to-play future, with optional sadness included with incremental payments. Fun wouldn’t exist anymore, and the industry would be filled with more meaningless ‘epic, cinematic experiences’ or grindy little timewasters.

Besides, without Nintendo, the other console manufacturers won’t have anyone to copy will they?

And honestly, screw the thought of them going third party or developing for iOS. Playing Mario or Metroid on an iffy touch screen? No thanks. Just you name me a game on iOS or Android that’s even a bit as good as a Mario or Zelda. You can’t can you?

When you buy a Nintendo console, you don’t just invest in games, you invest in new hardware innovations, whether it’s analogue control, motion control or offscreen play. That’d be lost if they started developing for others.

To quote the great Thom Yorke, ‘you do it to yourself, you do, and that’s what really hurts.’

It’s your choice to continue ignoring the best games makers in the world for whatever stupid reason you’ve come up with, but don’t say you weren’t warned if the only thing you’re playing on in the future is a mobile phone.

Besides, the thought of no more Nintendo Directs and no more Iwata is too terrible to bear.